2023-06-21 20:00:06
The cliché that Neanderthals were brutes and apes, closer to beasts than humans, no longer holds. Scientific evidence obtained in recent years suggests that, in reality, the species that dominated Eurasia for hundreds of thousands of years was rather sophisticated, probably comparable to ours, skilled and with symbolic capacity. Some investigations have even suggested that they made artistic productions. The most striking that have been known, not without controversy, are abstract paintings of at least 64,000 years old found in three Spanish caves: La Pasiega in Cantabria, Maltravieso in Cáceres and Ardales in Málaga. Supposedly, the first cave paintings of humanity.
Now, a group of researchers has discovered finger marks left by Neanderthals 57,000 years ago on the wall of a cave, La Roche-Cotard, in the center of the Loire Valley in France. They believe they were consciously and deliberately made into the soft rock, making them the oldest “unmistakable” engravings attributed to these hominids.
The engravings, made on a wall 12 meters long, “are made up of a large number of lines of two types: more or less circular and simple points made with the tip of the finger, which point in the same direction; and some more complex lines left by dragging the tip of the finger along the surface of the wall, which form a kind of structure with triangular, rectangular panels…”, explains Jean-Claude Marquet, a researcher at the University of Tours and co-author of the study published this Wednesday ‘PLOS ONE’. In his opinion, these lines were not marked at random, but were the result “of an intention and reflection on the ground before beginning the drawing. It is a person’s deliberate choice.”
The team dated the cave’s sediments with Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) dating, and determined that the grotto was closed by sediment infill around 57,000 years ago, long before A wise man settled in the region. This, combined with the fact that the stone tools inside the cave are only Mousterian, a technology associated with Neanderthals, is strong evidence that these engravings are the work of these hominids, who were there 75,000 years or even a year ago. little more.
complex behavior
Until now, there have been few examples of symbolic expressions from Neanderthals. Among them, an intertwined of a few lines carved into the ground in a Gibraltar cave 38,000 years ago. Or a raven bone engraved between 38,000 and 43,000 years ago in Zaskalnaya, Siberian, with evenly spaced notches in a column or ladder pattern. As for the paintings in the three Spanish caves, “the problem is that there is no consensus in the scientific community on their dating, so they could have been made by sapiens. They are not accompanied by any exhaustive study, neither archaeological nor geological. Therefore, we do not have contextualization, which is essential for a good understanding of the dates,” says Eric Robert, co-author of the research.
Because these symbols are not figurative, it is virtually impossible to know their meaning and intent. However, “they testify to a certain graphic search, to a coherence in the series of gestures performed,” says Robert. In his opinion, they are one more example of the complex behavior of Neanderthals.
«We know that they buried their dead, we have discovered productions of ornaments, engravings on objects and now on the walls. They also frequented the caves more than 170,000 years ago in Bruniquel, in the French Dordogne, where they developed structures that are still the subject of research today (a pair of circles formed with stalactites where rites could have been practiced)”, says the researcher. “It’s a range of practices that go beyond subsistence needs and bear witness to some of the facets of the Neanderthal spiritual universe,” he adds.
The new finding further expands what is known about the symbolic world of Neanderthals and indicates that “we must be attentive to the possibility of discovering other works” of these hominids.
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